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The story
Freelance announcer Shinichi Hatori (55) revealed on the October 11 broadcast of BS-TBS’s “Sekiguchi Hiroshi no Sannin Yoreba” that he had failed to get into Rikkyo University during his entrance exams. Hatori is a graduate of Waseda University’s School of Political Science and Economics, and fellow guest Kazuo Tokumitsu and others exclaimed “Seriously?!” in surprise. On the 5ch Geino/Sports News Plus thread, the discussion turned to the gap in difficulty between Waseda and Rikkyo for Hatori’s generation, and how unusual it is to pass Poli-Sci/Econ while failing Rikkyo, with many commenters reminiscing about the private-university exam landscape of that era.
Freelance announcer Shinichi Hatori (55) appeared on the October 11 broadcast of BS-TBS’s “Sekiguchi Hiroshi no Sannin Yoreba” (Sundays at noon), where he revealed the name of a school that had rejected him during his university entrance exams.
He appeared as a guest alongside his senior at Nippon TV, freelance announcer Kazuo Tokumitsu. The show’s host, Hiroshi Sekiguchi, and Tokumitsu are both Rikkyo University graduates, and since Rikkyo has produced many celebrated announcers — including Minomonta, Shinobu Oosaka, and Masaru Doi — Hatori remarked admiringly, “Rikkyo is amazing.”
Hatori is himself a graduate of Waseda’s School of Political Science and Economics, and Tokumitsu said, “That’s a very prestigious school.” Hatori then suddenly confessed, “Actually, I failed to get into Rikkyo,” prompting both of them to exclaim in surprise — “Seriously?!” and “Wait, really?!”
Source: sponichi.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Poli-Sci/Econ being amazing is one thing, but I feel like Rikkyo itself used to be a lot better too.
Watching stuff like Wakatte TV (a YouTube channel that dissects exam difficulty/hensachi), you really learn that a university's hensachi varies wildly by year, department, and early/late admission round.
That was the dankai-junior generation — the baby boomers' kids — when the age cohort hit 2 million people.
Now that you mention it, yeah. In this compliance-obsessed era, I wonder if it's even okay to say there's a gap between two private schools like that.
There's definitely some of that. Though if a Rikkyo grad heard this, they'd probably be thrilled anyway.
Well, Rikkyo back in 'Bird's' day (a pun on Hatori's name, which contains 鳥/'bird' — i.e. his own exam-taking years) was way harder to get into than Waseda is now.
Even now, pretty much anyone can get into Waseda.
Back in 'Bird's' day, being a ronin was totally normal, so Waseda wins hands down.
These days, Waseda after one year as a ronin, for sure.
But thanks to the Tokyo media, there are also plenty of people who hype up MARCH while looking down on regional national universities.
By 'Bird's' era, it wasn't even just Waseda-Keio-Sophia — there was barely any gap between Rikkyo, Meiji, and Aoyama Gakuin either.
IIRC math was an elective for Poli-Sci/Econ, not a requirement, and besides, you can't directly compare hensachi between national/public and private universities in the first place.
For some reason Waseda's Poli-Sci/Econ was considered top-tier among Japan's humanities/social-science departments — it had a reputation for being brutally hard.
Suiran used to be Yokohama Boys' Middle School No. 2; Hiranuma used to be Yokohama Girls' High School No. 1.
That same year, Meiji's entrance exam had about three times the usual number of proctors because of the Nabeyakan exam-impersonation scandal from the year before (a comedian who'd taken an exam in someone else's place).
Apparently even Nabeyakan's scandal only came out because of a whistleblower — kind of wild.
Shinya Ueda: dropped out of Waseda University's School of Education, Japanese Language & Literature
Teppei Arita: dropped out of Rikkyo University's Faculty of Law
Arita actually got into Meiji straight out of high school, but Ueda talked him into becoming a ronin instead.
If you spend all your time cramming for Waseda Poli-Sci/Econ and only squeeze in Rikkyo as an afterthought, yeah, you'll fail it.
About 40%, I'd guess.
Hiranuma High School, 2026 results: Waseda 24, Keio 14.
Since the school-district restrictions were lifted, Koryo's popularity has probably dropped while Hiranuma's has risen.
Since the school-district restrictions were lifted, Koryo's popularity has probably dropped while Hiranuma's has risen.
Really? My impression is that back then there was a pretty big gap between Waseda/Keio and MARCH. Passing Waseda/Keio but slipping on a MARCH school in the same exam season seems pretty rare to me.
Yeah, if you didn't specifically prep for them, MARCH schools could be risky. There were even efficiency-obsessed types who flipped that around — only studying for, say, Chuo's non-Law faculties or Hosei's Tama campus, aiming purely to land a MARCH acceptance.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The backdrop to this topic is the fierce competition in private-university entrance exams during the 1980s-90s, driven by the surge in exam-takers from the baby boomers’ children (the “dankai junior” generation). Before the “Waseda-Keio-Sophia” grouping became standard, there was a period when people said “Waseda-Keio-Rikkyo” instead, and some commenters on the thread noted that there was barely any difficulty gap between Rikkyo, Meiji, and Aoyama Gakuin at the time. Opinions were divided on just how rare it is to pass Waseda’s Poli-Sci/Econ department while failing Rikkyo — one guess put it around 40%, though that’s not backed by any verified statistics. It’s also worth keeping in mind that hensachi scores can’t be directly compared between national/public and private universities, or across different departments, years, or early/late exam schedules — so judging the difficulty of that era by today’s ‘MARCH’ framework can be misleading.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geino/Sports News Plus) thread “Announcer Shinichi Hatori Confesses the University That Rejected Him — Tokumitsu Kazuo Stunned: ‘Seriously?!’.”
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